The Religion (9 page)

The
Couronne
was long and sleek, a hundred and eighty feet from stem to stern and only twenty feet in the beam. It was designed, like all the knights' ships, for speed and attack. The hull was painted black and the huge lateen sails were bloodred. The gold eight-pointed cross woven thereon dazzled the eye. On the wharf to welcome the ship in their long black mantles stood a score or so knights of the Religion. All wore swords over their robes and looked ready for any hazard. Tannhauser assumed they'd arrived in recent days from the most distant priories of the Order and indeed the features of some were distinctly German or Scandinavian, and of others likely Spanish or Portuguese. They were taking it in turns to embrace a slender brother who stood amongst them. When the man turned this way to greet the next, Tannhauser recognized Oliver Starkey. Their eyes met and Tannhauser saluted and smiled. Unease flickered over Starkey's fine-boned face; but then he too smiled and nodded, and turned back to his brethren. Tannhauser motioned to Bors.

"Let's conclude our affairs with the captain and seek out Brother Starkey later."

As Tannhauser stepped up the main gangplank, Bors put a hand of warning on his arm. Three men came down the walkway, the sun at their backs. Two wore Dominican robes, and odd companions they made because one, in size, would have made two of the other. Behind them came
a Spaniard in his twenties, lean as a whip and dressed in a fine black doublet. His eyes and mouth were depraved and he had the look of a murderer. At his waist hung both dagger and sword. The larger of the monks walked with the bearing of a prince and the humility of a pauper. His path was arrayed against Tannhauser's and as he passed from the glare of the light, Tannhauser saw his face and felt his gut clench.

Tannhauser said, "Ludovico Ludovici."

"The Inquisitor?" said Bors.

The world in which Tannhauser lived might well have seemed wide to the mass of common men, but because of that very selectivity it was smaller than the map on which he moved. The map of villainy was smaller still. He felt his skin stretch taut around his skull.

He said, "Ludovico sent Petrus Grubenius to the stake."

Bors took his shoulders and tried to maneuver him out of Ludovico's path. "The past is past. Let's look to our business."

"I was a brute and Petrus made me a man. He was my teacher. He was my friend."

"And it's a fool who cherishes an enemy he can't fight."

Tannhauser yielded to Bors's strength and took a step back; but he didn't take his eyes from Ludovico's face and he saw that the Inquisitor now studied him as he approached. The shorter monk, a sallow cove with disdainful features and sweating under two heavy satchels, made to walk past them as if skirting a noxious midden, but at the last moment Ludovico stopped and turned and regarded Tannhauser with courtesy. He indicated his waxy confrere.

"May I present Father Gonzaga, the legate of our Holy Office in Messina."

Gonzaga, perplexed by Ludovico's tarriance, managed a nod.

"This is-Anacleto."

The soulless young Spaniard stared at Tannhauser without warmth.

"I am Fra Ludovico. But in that respect you seem to have the advantage."

Ludovico's voice rolled over him, calm and deep as a windless sea. Yet beneath its surface lurked monsters. Tannhauser gestured to Bors. "Bors of Carlisle." Then he gave a short bow. "Captain Mattias Tannhauser."

Ludovico's attention was engaged. "Your reputation goes before you."

"Every cock is king on his own dunghill," Tannhauser replied.

The bluntness of the remark took Ludovico by surprise and his sensual mouth broke into a smile, as if discovering how to do so for the first time. An affronted gasp escaped Gonzaga's throat. Anacleto watched Tannhauser as a cat watches a bird in a barnyard. Bors watched Anacleto, and fidgeted with fingers that would rather have held a knife.

"You're a philosopher," said Ludovico. "And a keen one."

Despite the old hatred rekindled within, Tannhauser found himself warming to the monk. A sign that Ludovico was more dangerous than he could imagine. Tannhauser shook his head. "Your Grace flatters me. I'm a fortunate man but a simple one."

This time Ludovico laughed out loud. "And I am a humble priest."

"Then we meet upon the square," Tannhauser replied.

By now Gonzaga's astonishment was aimed at his master.

Ludovico said, "Tell me from whence you know me, Captain Tannhauser. If we'd met before today I would surely remember."

"I saw you only once, and at a distance, and many years ago. In Mondovi."

Ludovico looked up into the distance, as if conjuring a scene from a memory detailed and vast, and he nodded. "Apart from myself, you were the tallest man in the piazza." His gaze came back around and the shadow of an obscure sorrow crossed his face, and Tannhauser knew that they both could recall the same pillar of flame and the feral acclamation of the same bestial mob.

Ludovico said, "The world is awash with evil, now as then, and the evidence of Satan's handiwork is everywhere apparent."

"I'll not gainsay you," said Tannhauser.

"There was wickedness afoot amongst the Piedmontese," said Ludovico. "Purity of faith had been impaired by war and malignant doctrines flourished. Discipline had to be restored. I'm happy that you were not numbered among the guilty."

Tannhauser spat on the dockside and covered the phlegm with his boot. "My wickedness is too common to invite the attention of such as thee," he replied. "In Mondovi, you murdered uncommon men. Men of uncommon learning. Like Petrus Grubenius."

A change in the light in Ludovico's eyes showed cognition of his victim's name, but he said nothing. Tannhauser pointed due south, toward Syracuse.

"It wasn't far from here that the great Archimedes was murdered too, by an illiterate Roman soldier, for writing mathematical ciphers in the dust." He turned back to Ludovico. "It's a comfort to know that in the centuries stacked high since, Rome's admiration for learned men has not diminished."

No man there had ever heard an inquisitor accused of murder. To hear it twice left both Bors and Gonzaga pale with stupefaction.

Ludovico took it all with equanimity. "My comfort is the triumph of order over anarchy. And heresy-which is the enemy of good order-is rooted in the vainglory of learned men. He who hears the Eternal Word has no need of learning, for learning in itself is no virtue at all and is often the road that leads to infinite darkness."

"I'll agree that learning confers no guarantee of virtue, for the evidence stands before me." Tannhauser could feel Bors's eyes drilling into his skull, but the mood was upon him. "As to darkness, broader roads lead thereto than that of knowledge."

"What good is knowledge without fear of God?"

"If God needs human agents to make us fear Him, then you must tell me what paltry manner of god He must be."

"I am no agent of God," said Ludovico, "but rather of the One True Church." He pointed to the knights on the jetty. "These noble Knights of the Baptist, whose valor I imagine you honor, are come to defend the Cross against the Red Beast of Islam. The war that Mother Church struggles to survive is more desperate by far. The enemies ranged against Her from every quarter are more terrible and more ubiquitous, and the very worst are spawned from within Her own bosom. The duration of the Church's war will be measured not in weeks, or even in years, but in millennia. And at stake is not an army, or an island, or a mere people, but the destiny of all mankind for all eternity. My purpose, then, is not to spread fear but to defend the Rock upon which Peter founded Christ's congregation."

"I do indeed honor these knights," said Tannhauser, "but they come to cross swords with the bravest fighting men in the world, not to torture the powerless and execute the meek."

"And the Paradise of the saints will be their reward. But you, too, wear a sword. If you believe in your inmost heart-in that place where even you hear the Voice of God-that you would rid His world of evil in ridding
it of me, then I urge you, now, to draw your sword with gladness and strike me dead."

The more the man talked, the more Tannhauser liked him, and the more he was convinced that he would rid the world of a very great menace indeed by striking him dead. He smiled. "I'll match words with you no longer," he said, "for I concede I cannot best you."

"The challenge was issued in earnest," said Ludovico. "And your comrade, at least, believes you might take it up."

Tannhauser looked at Bors, who was indeed poised as if to spring on him. At Tannhauser's expression, and somewhat sheepishly, he relaxed.

"It is not my purpose to rid the world of evil," said Tannhauser, "but rather to accumulate wealth-and even a little learning-and to die of all the vices my allotted span will allow me to indulge. I turned my face from God a long time ago."

"Believe me, man, He lives within you as surely as He lives within me," said Ludovico. "And, just as surely, He will judge me for each of my deeds as He will judge you for yours."

"Then perhaps-on Judgment Day-we'll stand in the dock together, side by side."

Ludovico nodded. "Of that, too, we may have no doubt at all."

Ludovico glanced at Gonzaga, who was not only visibly shocked by what had passed but was also straining not to drop the satchels in his fists. Ludovico turned back to Tannhauser.

"Let us pray that by then the Grace of God will have freed us both from sin."

"I thought you priests reserved that power to yourselves."

"Opinions differ, scholastically speaking," Ludovico replied. "The priest may absolve you from the punishment due to sin-which is Damnation-but if, as some of the higher authorities hold, the malice of sin is defined as obduracy of heart, then that can only be broken down by Sorrow."

"You've dispensed a deal of sorrow too," said Tannhauser.

"Who among us has not?" He waited and Tannhauser nodded. Ludovico said, "And if Sorrow opens the gate to the Grace of God, then what right man would shun it?"

Tannhauser didn't answer. Ludovico smiled, with a hint of melancholy.

"But I'm keeping you from your business. Despite your shameless blasphemies, perhaps you'd accept a humble priest's absolution before we part? It would ease my conscience, even if it won't ease yours."

Tannhauser glanced at Anacleto and caught the ghost of a smile on the cupid lips. He hesitated. But churlishness was not his habit and he lowered his head. Ludovico raised his hand and made the sign of the cross.

"
Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritu Sancti, Amen
."

Tannhauser looked up. He realized that Ludovico had the coldest eyes he'd ever seen.

"
Assalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
," said Tannhauser.

"Until we meet again," said Ludovico.

"I'll bring my own firewood."

Tannhauser watched the Dominican stride away with Gonzaga panting in tow. Anacleto's lupine figure brought up the rear. At ten paces distant he made a point of looking over his shoulder. Tannhauser held his eyes and Anacleto turned away and the trio were lost in the tumult of the port.

"Would you have us all on the rack?" seethed Bors. "I've never seen such folly."

"The eagle doesn't hunt worms," Tannhauser replied. "Ludovico's prey is the Religion."

"I saw his face when he absolved you," insisted Bors. "As if he were sending you to the gallows. Or the stake. Mark my words, that blessing will prove a malediction."

Tannhauser slapped him between the shoulders. "Blessing or curse, I've no more faith in one than in the other, so let's to work."

The captain of the galley was the Cavaliere Giovanni Castrucco, whom Tannhauser knew, and so the civilities were brisk and he and Bors were invited on board to have the bill of lading stamped and endorsed by the purser, and to arrange the loading of the cargo, which would occupy the rest of the day. The payment would be credited to their bank account in Venice and the Order never reneged on its debts. The
Couronne
would leave on the midnight tide: the Turkish vanguard might turn up any hour and Castrucco was eager not to run a blockade. When the business was done, Tannhauser and Bors headed back down the gangway and found
Oliver Starkey on the quay. Tannhauser stretched out his hand and Starkey took it.

"Brother Starkey. This is a pleasure I didn't expect."

"Tannhauser." Starkey turned to shake Bors's hand too. "And Bors of Carlisle."

He pronounced his countryman's name with ironic amusement. It was true that Bors's sobriquet was somewhat extravagant, smacking as it did of noble birth; but then so too was "Tannhauser." They'd chosen their noms de guerre over a bottle of brandy in Milan, while looking to hire their lances out to Alva. The unmapped mud hole from which Bors hailed was at least located near Carlisle; "Tannhauser" was stolen from some ballad of chivalric fancy, an old troubadour's tale concerning a knight who was plagued by women and exiled from the City of God as a result. But a name had a power all its own, illegitimate or not, and theirs had done them proud, then and since.

"What brings you to Messina at this late date?" Tannhauser asked.

"You do," said Starkey.